


this is how it feels to take a fall

by foreverunsolved (221b_quote)



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Inspired by The Fall of Icarus (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, he doesn't actually die tho dw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 10:48:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27469783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_quote/pseuds/foreverunsolved
Summary: Tony Stark has always been cursed with unreasonable hubris. People often tell him that it will be the ultimate cause of his downfall. He can’t quite say he disagrees. When he finds himself falling from the sky in a frozen suit, he recognizes that he literally has flown too close to the sun. When he falls from a wormhole, Rhodey calls him Icarus. Tony’s almost flattered.[Or: Five times Tony finds himself falling, and one time he watches something fall.](title from “Icarus” by Bastille)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	this is how it feels to take a fall

**Author's Note:**

> So, this fic didn't start out as 5 + 1, I just really wanted to write a fic based on this song, and at the end realized that it fit lol. I usually push myself to write longer fics than this, but those take weeks and I just wanted to get something out quick in a few days. I highly suggest giving the song a listen while you read or even check out my Tony Stark spotify playlist "i don't want to lie to tell myself i'm more than all the mistakes i've outrun [tony stark]"

**0.**

His mother tells him the story of Icarus late one summer night. 

Tony’d been having trouble sleeping, so he pleaded with his mother to tell him a story that would lull him to sleep. She reluctantly sat down on the edge of his bed and, with the smallest of smiles, unfolded the tragic tale of a boy destroyed by his own pride. Tony listened to the story with the rapt attention of an awestruck six-year-old.

“Daedalus warned his son, ‘Don’t fly too close to the water, lest it clog your wings, but don’t fly too high, lest the wax holding them together melts,’” his mother recounted smoothly. “And they took flight, attempting to escape the island. But as they flew, Icarus grew haughty and confident. He forewent the safe space between the sun and ocean and started to climb higher and higher into the sky.”

Tony listens with wide eyes as his mother recounts the tale of Icarus’ fall. As a child, he knows that it’s about the dangers of pride and hubris. He recognizes it as his mother’s warning to not let his fame and intellect get the better of him. 

But as he grows from genius child to playboy asshole, he can’t help but start to think that it never was that complicated. The story of Icarus becomes less and less the tale of an arrogant child’s hubris and more and more the lesson not to make wings out of wax.

**1.**

Tony had always had a flair for the dramatic.

The Jericho presentation is a prime example, all overemphasized words and explosions in the distance. The Ten Rings are a shock, and if he hadn’t had Yinsen there to knock him into shape, he wouldn’t have made it out. He remembers staring at the blueprints of his batshit plan and telling himself that these wings couldn’t be made of wax if he wanted to escape. 

As he crashes into the sand, he realizes that when all you have is wax, making a stronger pair of wings is nearly impossible. 

**2.**

His next suit, Mark II, is anything but wax.

The suit flies up and over the Malibu coast, JARVIS throwing information at him a million times a minute. He whoops and laughs as he flies over the water and watches the pier lights from a distance. He rockets up towards the moon despite JARVIS’s warnings because the sun can’t melt his wax if it isn’t out. He forgets that melting isn’t the only extreme he needs to worry about.

He falls to the ground, panicking as JARVIS goes silent and the suit goes dark. The flaps stick, and all Tony can think is that this is his fall. His hubris will kill him like everyone always told him it would.

**3.**

Tony finds it almost poetic that the device he built to save his life will end it. The arc reactor, now a symbol of Tony’s change from Merchant of Death to Iron Man, is poisoning him slowly everyday.

The very symbol of his intelligence, ingenuity, and ego was killing him. 

The even more poetic part is that his hubris really will be his downfall this time. Everything else was just a warning — close calls to keep him from making the same mistakes again. But he never learned, did he? The Iron Man armor was an addiction that he just couldn't shake, a weapon he couldn’t put down. 

He’d likely have a year, maybe a little more, if he stopped. Laying down the suit would be his only chance at a longer life, but he couldn’t. Not with people he could save. Not with new threats that could pop up any day. The suit was his glorious savior after being kidnapped and tortured, and now it would be his twisted demise. If he kept using the suit, even on an emergency only basis, he was lucky to have more than a few months.

He looks at himself in the bathroom mirror and decides that any further steps towards death will be of his own doing. 

**4.**

_ “You’re not the one to make the sacrifice play.” _

Turns out he fucking was. 

The World Security Council were a bunch of cowards in perfectly pressed suits. 

The nuke is flying over the water when Tony makes the decision and grabs it. He positions himself under the bomb to maneuver it through the wormhole. Someone won’t walk away from this fight. It’s either them or the Chitauri, and Tony won’t let it be them because them means the entire fucking world.

Natasha can close the portal once he’s through.

Steve warns him about the circumstances of this decision, and Tony finds it ironic that Steve is the one to tell him not to sacrifice himself.

Pepper doesn’t pick up the phone.

_ One final act of hubris, _ Tony thinks as he flies higher and higher and through the portal.

He doesn’t even register the stars around him, the galaxy that has never been seen by human eyes. All he sees are the ginormous ships full of Chitauri just waiting on Earth’s doorstep.

It’s either them or the Chitauri  _ and him. _

And as the suit shuts down and the nuke hits its target, Tony thinks that the deal is worth it.

**5.**

He’d really done it this time. 

Tony will admit that giving the entire world his address wasn’t a genius move, but he’d been angry and in the heat of the moment, judgement still clouded by the fucking burning rage over someone hurting Happy, a challenge had seemed like his best chance at catching the Mandarin. 

He’d been surprised when Maya showed up on his doorstep. He never forgot a face, and the whole Mandarin bit had just been to see if she’d be honest. She tells him that they need to get somewhere safe to talk, and Pepper agrees, but an explosion interrupts them.

He sends the suit to protect her because he’d rather die than have Pepper hurt because of these assholes too. 

He tries to fight once she’s safe, and even manages to take out two of the three helicopters, but he doesn’t fight hard enough.

He gets tangled up in the wreckage, and finds himself falling into the water below. He sinks; his suit and the bits and pieces of his home dead weight that push him further and further down. He freezes because even if the Ten Rings seemed like ages ago, the memories of drowning in water that seemed deeper than the ocean as he was repeatedly electrocuted is still very fresh in his mind.

_ Icarus ultimately drowned,  _ a quiet voice in the back of his mind supplies.

Tony lets that thought flow over him and the weight of rubble crushing his chest comfort him as water fills the suit.

**+1.**

Tony stands in the ruins of his old home and looks out over the ocean. 

Clutched tightly in his hand is a brown paper bag that holds one item — the arc reactor. The symbol of the torture he’d endured and the man he’d become. The symbol of the hero and his hubris. 

He takes it out of the bag with a sad smile.

Once upon a time it had been his greatest creation, and once upon many other times it had almost killed him. He had thought that he’d never live without it, but here he was alive and well with it sitting dim in the palm of his hand.

He brushes his thumb over the center of the reactor one last time before chucking it as hard as he can. 

And there he stands on the edge of a cliff as he watches his hubris sink into the sea.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this lil oneshot!! leave a comment or kudos if you feel so inspired, and feel free to come rant about avengers with me @fxreverunsolved on twitter!!!


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